I have a child who is a tad older than this discussion...
[In reply to]

Can't Post

And I treat this subject the same way I do every other subject under the Sun, if he's old enough to ask about something, he deserves an answer - a FULL answer. I've never withheld on him anything. Does that mean I give him complete information? To the best of my ability to communicate it to him, yes I do. Since he was old enough to talk I have never once given him a 'kid' or 'baby' answer to anything. Most times his eyes glaze over around paragraph 2 of a 5 paragraph explanation. But almost without exception he'll come to me 2 weeks later and talk to me about something from paragraph FOUR, sometimes connected to something completely unrelated to what he asked about, and he'll be RIGHT! Would I bring it up out of the blue if he hadn't asked? No. But he has asked about it and been answered (he's 8 now). Children have a lot more power to comprehend than we give credit for. Teaching about differences is never needed, observation will do that. But teaching how to HANDLE differences is among the main things that adults should convey to children as those are hardest to work out on one's own. Most adults cannot do it well. Not idealistic, but a delusion. Innocence is simply ignorance and dangerous. Compassion and respect are far more valuable. Again, this is not about teaching kids the difference - they've noticed that themselves already - but about how to handle differences, either with belligerance, fear, and intolerance, or respect, compassion, and joy of diversity. Cruelty invents names better than education does.

But I have found verses that, as far as I know, very clearly state that God created men to marry women and women to marry men. For example, Leviticus 18 vs. 22 says ‘Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable" Genesis 19 talks about Sodom and Gomorrah. I won't put the whole story here (it's possibly too mature for some of the younger audience of TORN) but again, homosexuality is condemned as wrong.

Please don't label me as a hater, I believe that God has love and mercy for homosexuals. But He does not love homosexuality.

and you're right gimli's box, so far we've been able to discuss this like civilized people without shouting! :) that's good! :)

Laying aside all the other issues with using Leviticus to condemn or condone (it holds some other rather problematic laws), the Hebrew reads closer to: And with a male do not lie in a woman's bed; it is unclean.

As for the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, you might want to take a closer look at it. The sin the townspeople commit is one of foresaking the guest-host relationship, not homosexuality.

I would say look at Leviticus 20. The whole chapter is about sexual sins. Verse 13 says "And if a man lie with mankind, as with womankind, both of them have committed abomination..."

In Romans 1:26, 27 it says: "For this cause God gave them up unto vile passions: for their women changed the natural use into that which is against nature and likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the women, burned in their lust one toward another, men with men working unseemliness..."

a very similar story to Sodom, men ask for a guest to be brought out to them for bad reasons. The owner of the house calls them "vile". Of course they're also not being proper hosts ( to say the least:) but I'm pretty sure the "vile" epithet concerns the act of homosexuality.

The point I'm making is that you are the parent and you're talking to your own kid. You know how much you want to give him and when. He trusts you and you love him. It's part of the parent-child relationship.

Teachers in public schools don't always know when a child is ready and since these topics are best left to parents they should drop the subject and focus teaching other things that will help them be productive adults.

Then they won't have to give kids homework and you'll have more time to answer your sons questions about life relationships.

Genesis 2, matthew 19, Mark 10, Ephesians 5 all talk about a man leaving his father and mother for a woman.

also when God created humans, He made "male" and "female". He didn't leave an "other" choice.

But I would be curious to see what some of the other "mistranslations" are. While I understand that human beings translated the Bible, the Bible itself is the inspired word of God. Humans make mistakes, but God doesn't. And I believe that most Bible translators do everything in their power to make the translations as accurate as possible (otherwise they add footnotes)

because his daughters weren't guests and therefore it was a lesser crime to assault them than to assault his guests. The Bible doesn't have to lay out the guest-host relationship because it was so prevelant at the time. This was a crime that other gods *cough*Zeus*cough* had been killing for for generations. The Bible primarily sought to correct harsh behaviors at the time (like mistreating slaves or eating dangerous meat like shellfish) so it didn't need to reinforce things that were soblatantly obvious at the time.

I simply disagree. If he is old enough to ask the question he deserves a response. In a group dynamic such as a school if one child questions then it is something is going to be addressed in one manner or another. Do I understand your concern that some children may not be ready for answers that other children are? Yes. In life a lot happens that some are ready for and others are not. This is a great teaching tool for those situations with those children. Teaching a child to deal with such situations does teach them to be more productive adults. The school my son attends does not give homework - ever. It's a public school. I get tired of the rant that teachers don't know. They six hours a day with kids - far more than some parents do. You're looking at this from the perspective of a home-schooled kid who has at least one and possibly two parents working together to raise you and your sister. Not all children are so lucky. Yes, I've read where you and WB talk to your 'parents', plural so I know they're together, but I do not know how involved both are with your schooling, etc. Further, many homeschooled, at least of the religious variety, do so because they believe school to be immoral according to their beliefs and your citing teaching homosexuality appears to be in line with such an observation. As such I believe your view to be skewed on the intentions of most teachers and schools who try very hard to do right by the children in their charge. Are there 'bad' teachers? YES! But there are also 'bad' parents as well. It's fairly easy to get two people to agree on most things or at least to compromise. Once you get 3 or more it becomes increasingly impossible/improbable. I think that getting together in a public forum and discussing matters brings a far greater chance of understanding and peace than avoidance of a subject.

In most cases the prescriptions against homosexuality are caused by a translator either having an agenda or a poor understanding of the nuances of Hebrew and Greek. Disclaimer time: I can still muddle my way through koine Greek, but I'm relying on others for my Hebrew.

Again, Leviticus 20 translates to not lying with a man in a woman's bed, which was a common fertility rite at the time. Romans 1:26 is more interesting since it's less of a translation error and more a context problem. It seems to me that it' arguing not to engage in homosexual intercourse if one is actually heterosexual.

Is it possible we're reading into this a little too much? (I do that all the time :) It says it's detestable for men to have "relations" with each other. To me it seems pretty clear. And in the original Greek, it says pretty much the same thing (only choppier :) BTW I don't know greek, but we have a Greek NT that has the original greek, the literal translation, and I think the RSV all together, so you can compare them.

What it says is that it's detestable for men or women to turn against there nature in order to lie with the same sex. I see nothing about those who've been with the same sex all their lives here. The Bible continuously picks and chooses the times when it's unacceptable to have gay relations rather than coming out and saying it's forbidden.

that, being young.. you have not met a large range of people yet. And that, being young, the people in your realm of experience are also mostly young. And, in my experience, young people have angst and troubles no matter what their past experiences.. relationships... situations in life... or sexual preference is.

It is also my experience that the large number of gay, bi, and transgender people in my social circles are not at all troubled and would relate that they have lived lovely lives amongst family and friends who love them. In fact, I was honored to be present at the funeral I attended recently of one such man. That room was full of people from all walks of life, from all religions, from all cultures, from all ages, and from all declared assignments of sexual preference. To the person, we all loved Dan. His past was not troubled and neither were his relationships with peers or family members. Some spoke that, until meeting Dan, their experience of gay people was very limited and they were unsure what to make of him. What they learned was... people are people. And a good soul signs through, no matter what preconceived notions one might carry about a label we might apply to them.

We all develop our understanding of the world from our experiences. But we have to understand when our experiences are limited. You would be welcome to visit my world and meet the lovely people who I'm glad to call friends.

This discussion has gone way off-topic and has become a mostly three-way conversation. If you want to continue discussion homosexuality, gender issues and the Bible, please take it to private messages.

I've attended both public and private schools. I've also worked doing counseling at two public schools. I think there are some wonderful advantages and disadvantages to both.

I've mostly preferred my private school experience. I had smaller classes, more options of classes to take, and I got to take all the classes I signed up for when in high school (except for the chemistry class... they bumped me up to honors chemistry.) But the issue I had with private school is that I grew up in a low income single parent family, and most of my classmates were upper-middle class to wealthy. They couldn't understand why I didn't have the nice clothes they had, couldn't afford a car, vacations all over the world, etc. That was somewhat isolating. And at one of the private schools I attended when I was in elementary school, I was picked on, not only by the other kids, but one of the two women who owned and ran the school. I think in public school, that woman would have been more likely to have been fired for that in the public school system.

As for public school, I had some really great teachers as well as some I had in private school. But the classes were often really big, and the larger class sizes did affect how well I learned. I didn't always get into the classes I wanted, and my honors student friends who went to public school often found themselves scheduled in classes that were totally inappropriate for their needs and goals (one friend was put in drivers ed when she was 14 -- what good was that class to her when she wasn't even old enough for a permit?) I was also more likely to be separated from friends depending on what classes they decided to put me in, which ended up with me having a totally different lunch period from my closest friends, having a pretty depressing effect on my social life.

My biggest problem with the public school system has to do more with my older brother, though. If he had to go to public school the entire time he was in school, he would likely have dropped out at a much earlier age than he did. The schools and the teachers he had in public school just weren't properly trained on how to teach a kid with dyslexia. Instead of getting additional help from the teachers, he just got punished. He ended up going to a school that was specifically set up for highly intelligent kids with learning disabilities, and if that school hadn't lost funding and had to close its doors, he would have graduated. He ended up getting his G.E.D. and scored extremely well.

My experience with working as a counselor in public schools also impacts my view of public schools in general. It seems like public schools are a little better in helping kids with learning disabilities than they were when my brother was a kid. But they still need a lot of work. I also find that some of the teachers are overwhelmed because so many cut backs are being made to schools that sometimes, it's very difficult to do much of anything that resembles education. Many of the teachers would just toss me whatever kid was considered a troublemaker or a bad student so they didn't have to deal with them. And of course, the kids they handed over to me weren't actually bad kids at all and hardly deserved the label. Some of them were incredibly smart kids that were dealing with some very difficult situations in their lives. Oh, and did I mention that I wasn't getting paid in anything other than hours towards getting my license? With as little teachers get paid these days, I wasn't even getting paid anything to live on.

I don't want to badmouth public schools because I know from my own experience that there are some amazing teachers and some amazing public schools out there. But public schools were designed to resemble factories, and not everyone has the mental makeup to work well in a factory setting. There has to be an alternative for those who need a different type of teaching so that they can have a chance to be seen as more than a label of stupid kid, troublemaker, drop out, etc. And I.E.P.s can be very difficult to get so that those kids who need extra help can actually get it through the public school system. There are some private schools that can offer that extra help. There are some private schools that are really terrible. And sometimes home schooling is a really good option. Sometimes it's not. I just can't stand the thought of any child being denied the chance at having a good education because they fall through the cracks of any school system that can't work with them.

I think that people who send their kids to private school won't have the emotional investment in trying to see that the public schools get all the funding and support they need. Their money and time is all taken up just trying to get their own kids' schooling paid for. This would be bad news for all who, struggle as they may, must send their kids to public school.

is when people list problems with homeschooling, number one on their list is socialization (how we homeschoolers have come to cringe at that word!) To be honest, I think "socialization" has very little to do with where you go to school. My mom was both public and private schooled, had very few friends, was picked on a lot, and didn't have a great time. Now wait, don't tar and feather me! My point is there are exceptions to every rule.

For the most part, homeschoolers get just as much socialization as public schoolers - through our own families, through homeschool co-ops, PSEO, sports, etc. There are some exceptions. Some homeschoolers are very reclusive and don't get out enough. Most public schoolers have friends, are happy, and enjoy being public schooled.But there are public schoolers too who don't have friends, get picked on, etc.

Neither is perfect. And homeschooling isn't for everyone, I understand that. But please, I am begging you on my knees! If you are going to find fault with homeschooling, be creative and pick something other than socialization! It's the least of our problems!